Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Defense of the Union Jack

The Union Jack of the United Kingdom can be proudly found throughout the world, include here at the Six Pence Pub in my hometown of Savannah, GA, with theHome Nation flags of England, Scotland, and Wales and the flag of the United States.Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

Flags – they can mean many things to many people. They can
represent pride and instill patriotism in some, while also causing an affront
to others – and these emotions can be felt by people living within the same
country.

Not since 1997 has a British athletics competition vest
failed to include the flag. For Olympic long jumper Greg Rutherford, it was “wrong
and ridiculous” to have the flag omitted, and he took his complaint to Twitter,
where he tweeted a photo of the new athletics kit.

Rutherford, known to be popular and forthright amongst
members of the athletics squad, further stated that he was “proud to be British”,
and lambasted the new kit – calling it “terrible” and no longer British. He
also claimed that there was not one athlete he had spoken to who had wanted the
change, and that everyone wanted the Union Flag on the vest. Among his Twitter followers who
agreed with this was British steeplechaser Eilish McColgan, who remarked that
the vest looked “really odd” without the flag and – as with Rutherford –
accused UK Athletics of representing itself, rather than Britain.

UK Athletics is the governing body of the sport of athletics
in the United Kingdom, and its CEO Nick de Vos stated that the objective of the
new kit was not to eradicate the Union Flag (which is still displayed on the
shorts and socks) but to promote the brand of Team GB and British Athletics
leading up to the World Championships being hosted by London in 2017, and that by
having “Great Britain” spelled out across the vest, they were actually taking a
cue from the success of Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. In this sense, it
was more about the team than the flag.

This view taken by the governing body is not entirely off
the mark. While having the flag on uniforms is preferable in athletic
competitions, it is not necessary – especially if the name of the country and
its colors are present as part of the scheme. For my part as an American, I do
not look for Old Glory on the uniform of athletes, and with regard to the last
summer Olympics, I paid much more attention to the performance of the squads
representing Team USA, whose uniforms typically displayed small US flags (probably not much larger than 2" x 3"). The substantial prominence of the flag came from the USA fans and its
appearance during victory laps and medal ceremonies.

So flags can become overrated in the overall scheme of
certain things and in certain contexts, and if the statement by UK Athletics
had been the last word of the controversy, this post would have stopped here.

But Jonathan Jones decided to take it to another level when he wrote in The Guardian that he had “sympathy” for the kit designers, who he
claimed had created an “elegant” vest with the national colors, while dispensing with “that
jagged, explosive, aggressive flag.”

Jones, an art columnist for the newspaper, insisted
that his criticism was not about “imperial arrogance” or a “coercive union that
keeps Scotland in its place”, but instead had to do with how the flag looked, and
he opined that the flag was “cluttered” with sharp-angled lines which implied
fragmentation as opposed to unity, as well as being “heavy and overbearing,
forceful and strident.”

Furthermore, Jones asserted that while the flag had meaning
when Britannia ruled the waves – and in particular, when fighting in battles
such as Waterloo and Trafalgar – it was “crap” today, and that its “sheer
pompous ugliness unconsciously damages the image of the union” in a way that
gives a “psychological boost” to the separatists who wish to break up Britain.

For this reason, he suggested that a new flag should be
designed to save the United Kingdom and make the British people proud to be
British and love their country again.

However, I find that the commentary by Jones – while a bit
refreshing for coming from an artistic point of view – was off the mark and at
odds with the Union Flag which I and millions of people around the world have
come to know.

The Union Flag is – quite simply – one of the most beautiful
flags in the world, and that beauty is in part derived from the fact that it is,
as Jones writes, “a compromise, a merging of different national symbols.” It
brings together a vibrant blue field and a white diagonal cross – the Saltire of St.
Andrew representing Scotland, with the red Saltire of St. Patrick for
Northern Ireland, and the red Cross of St. George representing
England, to forge one flag for one country – the United Kingdom.

It is therefore a flag of unity, and James VI of Scotland
knew exactly what he was doing in the early 1600’s when he moved to have the
flags of Scotland and England merged when he ascended to the English throne as
James I, and therefore became the first man to rule all Britain. The royal union
eventually led to the political, economic, and cultural union which has thus
far endured for over 300 years, and the flag has become a symbol of the nations
of Britain joining together as a single country.

This is in similar fashion to the United States, where the
stripes represent the original thirteen British colonies which became independent
states and came together as one, while the fifty stars represent the fifty states
of our current Union – all in the spirit of E
Pluribus Unum.

My hand-made Christmas ornament featuring Old Gloryon one side and the Union Jack on the other. Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

Indeed, the idea of several diverse areas melding together is especially true of
Britain, where various tribes eventually merged into larger and expanding
kingdoms, and resulted in the country that we know today. Those three crosses
come together as an expression of that unity, as well the possibilities that
can arise from that unity of peoples from so many cultures and backgrounds.

It must be made very clear that the Union Flag is not the
flag of any one part of the UK, nor is it the flag of any one ethnic group, nor
is it the flag of any one religious group, or of any one racial group, nor is
it the flag of any one political party, group, or philosophy. It is most definitely
not the flag of “Westminster”, and neither is it a factional or sectarian flag.

It is the flag of the United Kingdom and thus the flag of
all Britons, from Inverness to Southampton, Belfast to Dover, Berwick to Cardiff,
Anglesey to Glasgow, Land’s End to Shetland, and everywhere else in between.
This includes people who can trace their families to the Normans, Vikings,
Anglo-Saxons, Romans, and the various Celtic tribes (all of which are quite interrelated, anyway), as well as the people who are
Britons of the first generation in our time. As such, it is a flag of “relentless dynamism” – a term used by Jones – as the country has changed time and time again while also preserving elements of continuity.

It is not “owned” by anybody, just as the Saltire in
Scotland is not the flag of the Scottish nationalists, for it is the flag of
all of Scotland, including those who believe that Scotland should continue to
be part of the United Kingdom, and who look to the Union Flag as the one that
they share with the people of the rest of the Britain.

Some may disagree with me on this point, but quite simply,
it is my belief that the Union Flag serves the purpose as the national flag of
the United Kingdom, just as the Stars and Stripes does as the national flag of
the United States – full stop, and it is doubtful that the nationalists will
start looking more favorably at the Union with an entirely redesigned flag.

The one modification I would perhaps make would be to find a
way to include Wales, which had already been annexed into England at the time of the unions with Scotland and Ireland, so that it is effectively represented by St. George's Cross. It is not – at least from what I can see – a terribly
important issue, but it would be nice to have St. David’s Cross or the Red Dragon incorporated
into the design, so that Wales can be represented as an integral part of the
Union, as it always has been. My own personal preference would be to have the Red Dragon in the middle
to preserve the overall red, white, and blue color scheme of the flag (since St. David's cross is yellow).

After all, the Union Flag has long been established and
cemented as an easily and hugely recognized symbol of the United Kingdom across
the globe. It is powerfully iconic in its representation of Brand Britain everywhere,
whether it is featured on clothes, food packaging, automobiles, ships, airplanes,
various forms of media, mobile device cases, pillows and bed sheets, wallpaper,
Christmas ornaments, stuffed animals, desktop backgrounds, posters, logos and insignia's for various organizations, and several other things which people use
or come into contact with everyday.

The flag is flown in admiration for Britain and to denote
places, people, and things that are British, such as the Scottish pub in my
hometown of Savannah which flies it, along with the Saltire and the Red Lion
Rampant (the Royal Standard of Scotland) on its premises, as well as another pub which flies the crosses of St.
Andrew and St. George, the Red Dragon, the Union Jack, and the Stars and
Stripes. When one sees the Union Flag around the world, he or she knows what it
is, and no questions need be asked.

From this point of view, the true measure of the global
influence of a Union Flag is not such much about how many other countries copy
its design when in the process of designing their own, but about how many people
admire it and choose to use it in admiration of and respect for the United Kingdom.

When I see the Union Flag, I do see the Saltire of St.
Andrew, St. Patrick’s Cross, and St. George’s Cross, and through them, I see
the countries of the UK and their contributions to Britain’s history, its
achievements, themes, values, issues, tensions, paradoxes, and
contradictions, as well as the triumphs and tragedies, good and bad, joys and
sorrows, and times of unity and division, as well as its future – all wrapped up into
one flag to represent the United Kingdom as a whole in its beautifully complex tapestry.

Alongside the idea of abank holiday in commemoration of the entire United Kingdom, the Union Flag ought to be formally codified into
law as the official flag of the United Kingdom, and as such, should fly
from all public buildings at all times, alongside the flags of each Home Nation
where appropriate (i.e., it and the Saltire side-by-side at public buildings in
Scotland). There is no reason why this cannot be done, and indeed, the Union
Flag should not be in competition with the Saltire or the other Home Nation
flags. Except for Wales, it is composed of flags representing the Home Nations,
and as such, it complements them and denotes their rightful place in the
overall context of the Union.

This is why I see unity instead of division in a
flag of “relentless dynamism” which befits the robust, outward-looking, and
tolerant country that Britain is and should always aspire to be, as well the
hope that Britain can sort out its issues – constitutional and otherwise – as
one.

1 comment:

Another interesting blog, Wesley, and yet one very much from the American perspective, I would suggest. One of the things that struck me, and I'm sure many other Brits when I moved to the USA was the preponderance of American (and, here in Houston, Texan) flags you see flying everywhere. Americans seem much more relaxed about flying their flag and, it would seem, take every opportunity to do so. The British, on the other hand, were for a long time somewhat reticent about flag waving and overt displays of, and support for Nationalism was relatively rare. This led to the Union Flag being hijacked by British Nationalists and extreme Unionists in rather the same way as the St. Andrew's Flag has been hijacked by Scottish Nationalists today. Thus, over the years, both flags have been interpreted as banners of hate by some section of the population.It has only been in recent years, since Scottish devolution and the resulting rise in Scottish Nationalism that overt flag waving has become commonplace in the UK. The natural reaction to rampant Scottish Nationalism has been a rise in English Nationalism (a thing hitherto almost buried) and the resurgence of the St. George's Cross, where once the Union Flag might have been flown (much to the justifiable chagrin, it must be said, of many Scots).Meanwhile the recent independence campaign in Scotland has pushed many of us into the unionist camp, and many of us, while wholeheartedly opposed to Scottish Nationalism, do not wear that badge comfortably given it's associations with the Orange Order and the like. Regardless, we have rallied to the Union Flag as a symbol of our belief in the UK.In short, the Union Flag is always tainted by politics in the UK, and, while I would be the last person to claim it is intended to be divisive, the presence in our islands of those who would happily break up the union, and drive a wedge between its people means it will never be the uncontroversial unifying banner the Stars and Stripes is in the US.The sooner the British Isles can rid itself of petty Nationalism and the flags cease to be tainted by it, the better.